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Anglican Priest Calvin Robinson Defrocked Over Nazi-Like Salute

Por Kathryn Post
calvin robinson anglican salute hand gesture
The Rev. Calvin Robinson gestures while speaking at the National Pro-Life Summit, Jan. 25, 2025, at the JW Marriott in Washington, D.C. (Video screengrab)

It’s still a matter of debate whether the salute performed by Elon Musk at an Inauguration Day speech in Washington — a chest thump followed by a straight-armed gesture — was intended to evoke a Nazi salute. But on Wednesday, a small Anglican denomination dismissed a priest for his apparent imitation of the Musk salute at a public event, saying he had been inappropriately “trolling” abortion-rights supporters.

“While we cannot say what was in Mr. Robinson’s heart when he did this,” the declaración by the Anglican Catholic Church said of Calvin Robinson, a British transplant who had been associated with the ACC since last year, “his action appears to have been an attempt to curry favor with certain elements of the American political right by provoking its opposition.”

Robinson’s salute occurred Saturday at the end of his appearance at the National Pro-Life Summit, where he praised Americans for “fighting for life.”

“God bless all of you for what you’re doing. Please keep doing it. I hope that I can encourage you, and my heart goes out to you. God bless,” said Robinson, before thumping his chest and saluting quickly to the right, arm extended, palm down. As the crowd laughed and applauded, Robinson gave them a knowing look.

On social media, viewers were quick to link the gesture to Musk’s controversial salute at the Capitol One Arena on Jan. 20. Musk, too, had said “my heart goes out to you.” Both gestures have been compared to a Nazi salute.

Your tax-deductible gift helps our journalists report the truth and hold Christian leaders and organizations accountable. Give a gift of $50 or more to The Roys Report this month, and you can elect to receive a copy of “Safe Church: How to Guard Against Sexism and Abuse in Christian Communities’ by Dr. Andrew Bauman, haga clic aquí.

elon musk trump presidency
Elon Musk gestures as he speaks during the inaugural parade inside Capitol One Arena, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Video screengrab)

According to the denomination, “Mr. Robinson had been warned that online trolling and other such actions (whether in service of the left or right) are incompatible with a priestly vocation and was told to desist. Clearly, he has not, and as such, his license in this Church has been revoked. He is no longer serving as a priest in the ACC.”

The statement went on to condemn antisemitism and Nazi ideology. “[W]e believe that those who mimic the Nazi salute, even as a joke or an attempt to troll their opponents, trivialize the horror of the Holocaust and diminish the sacrifice of those who fought against its perpetrators. Such actions are harmful, divisive, and contrary to the tenets of Christian charity.”

The Anglican Catholic Church was formed in the late 1970s by a group of clergy who broke from the Episcopal Church in the United States, in part due to the larger denomination’s decision to ordain women.

Robinson did not respond to request for comment in time for publication. On X, Robinson confirmed his license had been revoked, saying he learned the news via social media.

“My parishioners have been on the phone last night and this morning expressing concerns about our parish ministry; please keep them in your prayers,” he escribió. “They are the priority here. I am their pastor, and they are my flock. I will remain here for their pastoral needs, but I am worried about how they will receive the Sacraments.” Robinson also encouraged those seeking more information to contact his archbishop.

On Wednesday, Robinson also posted on X clarifying that he is not a Nazi, and he characterized his gesture as an “attempt at dry wit, in that typical British way.”

anglican catholic church
Logo of The Anglican Catholic Church (Courtesy image)

“The joke at the end was a mockery of the hysterical ‘liberals’ who called Elon Musk a Nazi for quite clearly showing the audience his heart was with them. Context is key, but sometimes people ignore context to confirm their own prejudices,” he escribió.

On Thursday, the editorial team of video game website and publication God is a Geek Anunciado the entire editorial staff would be resigning in light of Robinson’s salute.

Robinson, who owns the website, had “zero” input on the site in recent years, according to the announcement, which said the editorial team did not condone Robinson’s actions. 

“We will create a new site and our future content will be published there, bereft of any connection to Calvin Robinson,” the staffers wrote. 

When asked for comment on ACC’s decision to defrock Robinson, a spokesperson for Students for Life of America, which runs the National Pro-Life Summit, pointed RNS to a post by Students For Life President Kristan Hawkins. She condemned the Holocaust as “one of humankind’s worst tragedies,” while also saying that labeling people as “Nazis” is what happens when “people can no longer make persuasive or logical arguments.”

“The same people who look at an ultrasound and can’t see a baby will look at a Conservative expressing gratitude to a crowd and see a problem,” wrote Hawkins. “This is a coalition more upset over their interpretation of a hand wave by a priest, made in obvious satire to troll the Leftist media’s ruthelss & unfounded attacks against Elon Musk simply for being a Trump supporter, than the fact that all but one Democrat in Congress are okay with and voted in favor of infanticide last week.”

A onetime political commentator, Robinson is no stranger to controversy. Robinson, who is Black, is known for his strong opposition to women’s ordination and the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as for his criticism of the “liberal infestation of the church.”

“There is no fight left in England; it has become broadly apathetic to an invasion on the one hand by Islam and corruption on the other hand by liberalism,” he escribió in fall 2024.

calvin robinson
The Rev. Calvin Robinson speaks at the Oxford Union Society in Oxford, England, in February 2023. (Video screengrab)

In 2022, Robinson reclamado in an article in the British press that he had been blocked from becoming a priest in the Church of England due to his “anti-woke views.” He said he was prevented from serving as assistant curate at a parish in the Diocese of London after bishops voiced concerns about his social media presence. The Diocese of London told The Telegraph there are “a limited number of curacies available” and there was “no suitable option” they could offer Robinson.

That same year, Robinson left the Church of England for the Free Church of England, where he was ordained as a deacon. Formed in the mid-19el century, the Free Church of England is not a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion that includes the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the United States. In 2016, the Free Church came into full communion with the Anglican Church in North America, a conservative offshoot of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada.

In the past three years, Robinson has bounced from one conservative Anglican jurisdiction to another, leaving the Free Church of England and being ordained as a priest in another small denomination, the Nordic Catholic Church in England, in fall 2023.

In August 2024, he announced his departure from the United Kingdom and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, soon after, where he became priest-in-charge of St. Paul’s Anglican Catholic Church. Last January, Robinson was the subject of a different controversy when he was removed from an Anglican conference after comparing women’s ordination to a “Trojan horse” and to “cancer.”

“The doors were left open for the Marxist ideologies to gain a foothold, gender theory, queer theory, critical race theory — it all began with feminism,” he said at the conference.

Kathryn Post is a reporter for Religion News Service based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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15 Respuestas

  1. One quibble: Robinson was not defrocked. That would mean he would be totally deposed from the ministry. The Anglican Catholic Church (or at least his bishop) revoked his priestly license, which means he cannot perform ministerial duties within that denomination, but he still holds his ordination credentials. It would be like a teacher who gets fired and can’t be at a school, but he/she still maintains their teaching credentials. That being said, this was a long time coming even before this salute cascara. Robinson has been more interested in being on screen and in a celebrity pose than in faithfully performing Word-and-sacrament duties in his local church as he was supposed to be doing.

    1. I’d say it more than a quibble; it simply isn’t true that he was defrocked.

      And I am certainly no fan of Fr. Robinson’s. But this needs to be corrected.

  2. “an “attempt at dry wit, in that typical British way.””

    As a Brit, I can say that no Brit who had relatives fight in WW2 against Nazism and Fascism and Hitler etc, would EVER make any gesture, even jokingly, that whether intentionally or unintentionally resembles a Nazi salute. Never! Not even to make a joke or make a point about some other issue, we just wouldn’t.

    Hitler and Nazism was vile, even beyond the Holocaust evil, the treatment of other minorities, the treatment of prisoners of war, the treatment of civilians and the ciu tries they invaded etc etc – none of that is a joke and Musk and Robinson and anyone defending them should be ashamed.

  3. Normalizing Nazi salutes is an interesting (read: horrifying) direction for Christianity to go.

    In this case, it seems his intention was to make a joke, based on his smirk and the context of him being reprimanded for trolling elsewhere. But joking about Nazi support shows incredibly poor judgement, and rightfully disqualified him from leadership.

    Some say Elon’s intentions mattered, but Elon never clarified his intentions and apologized for his action, but doubled down on the Holocaust jokes. People kept posting pictures of him in Israel to prove he was not anti-Semitic, but forgot that he went to Israel on an apology tour for saying anti-Semitic things on twitter.

    There are a million other ways to wave to a crowd and say “my heart goes out to you” that DON’T mimic the motions of a Nazi salute. Elon knows. He’s done it differently in the past. Pick ANY of those other ways- this way will forever indicate that you are at least ok with Nazi signaling.

  4. Seriously, your reporter needs to get her facts in order. Anyone actually watching and listening to Elon Musk that night knows that his salute was in no way a Nazi salute. Come on!

  5. Calvin is the guy who recently expressed his disdain for the term “Judeo-Christian values.”. Seems Christianity has superceded Judaism. I responded to his Instagram post. He answered and then blocked me from responding. I suspect there is a “soft antisemitism” at play here that could easily morph into something far worse, given the ease with which he offered that salute.

  6. Kristan Hawkins has it right. So many people today don’t know satire when they see it. Especially British satire, which gave rise to Monty Python’s genius. Although some found them offensive as well, they never poked fun at true integrity and goodness, only the pretense of them (in defense of the real thing).

    Those with an active funny-bone could see that Musk’s intention, and Robinson’s as well, was to poke fun at those who are tolerating obvious Nazi behavior while going all self-righteous over a superficial resemblance to it.

    You could argue that a priest (or a global power-broker) shouldn’t stir up the hypocrites by trolling them. You can’t argue that trolling hypocrites is a mark of good satire – with the goal of getting people to laugh at the silliness of the pretense.

    OTOH even the relatively tame American Christian satire site Babylon Bee has been repeatedly deplatformed by the mainstream guardians of Social Media, who apparently can’t tell the difference between satire (targeting someone’s behavior) and hate speech (targeting someone’s innate characteristics).

  7. THIS is why we are to imitate only Yahshua haMashiach, and not any other man on earth (or any other gestures of man such as this “salute”). Yahshua says, today, as always: Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. When we lift our set apart (holy) hands to Him, as commanded, we are affirming, saluting His 10 Commandments of Covenant – 10 fingers/2 hands in a High Ten – Victory ensured! Moses, Aaron and Hur knew this, as the two friends of Moses held his arms/hands high during the battle, and the battle was won! HalleluYAH

  8. The salutes Musk and this guy gave and that Republicans cheered weren’t “Nazi like”. They were Nazi salutes. Period. The masks are finally coming off.

  9. It is articles like this is why I can not take The Roys Report as a serious journalistic outlet. You do great work, but Musk was not making a Nazi salute in any way, shape, or form. To suggest so is irresponsible and ignorant.

    1. It was literally the “shape” and “form” of a Nazi salute. That’s not debatable.

      We might ask, though–while Musk has distracted people with his salute, what is he doing now with your bank account information and social security number? And why hasn’t he been arrested?

      Stay focused, brother.

  10. Musk literally said “My heart goes out to you all” while grabbing his heart and then flinging it to the crowd. This is so dumb that one still shot was taken and it’s being called Nazi-like 🙄 it’s not a debate whatsoever.

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